


It Feels A Lot Like Drowning

by FelOllie



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Miscarriage, Prompt Fill, Temporary Character Death, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 13:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2193717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FelOllie/pseuds/FelOllie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As soon as he was dried and dressed Oliver was intent on crawling back into bed beside his wife to sleep off whatever bug he'd caught that had his head feeling like it was stuffed full of rusty nails and an entire grocery store worth of salt and had his stomach ready to revolt against him.</p><p>Feet shuffling and eyelids feeling as though they were dragging over broken glass Oliver stopped in the middle of his bedroom, his brain finally registering that something was wrong.</p><p>No, not something; Everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Feels A Lot Like Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> Olicity Prompt: Oliver wishes that he'd give anything to have Tommy back in his life and wakes up the next morning to a world where Tommy survived the earthquake, but Felicity did not.
> 
> I'll apologize now: I am so sorry, guys. I don't know what the fuck happened here.

You know how in the movies the protagonist somehow finds a way to fix everything that's broken and live happily ever after with the love of their life? You know how no matter how fucked up things get, how upside down and scrambled the hero's life gets they always have that one friend, their best friend, who can pull them back from the brink of total destruction and help them rebuild?

Well, this isn't the movies and our dear hero's story doesn't end that way.

Not even a little.

 

*

 

Oliver woke up retching. His throat burned with bile, his tongue thickly coated and his stomach heaving, clenching around nothing. He hadn't eaten anything at all the day before, nerves shot to shit and wound too tightly to even try forcing food down.

A few dry heaves and a pounding migraine were enough to get Oliver out of bed and stumbling for the bathroom. Before stripping out of his cotton sleep pants Oliver caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and was startled to see the dark rings beneath his eyes, the sallow pallor of his skin, a nearly ashy shade of gray. Shaking his head and immediately regretting the action, he brushed his teeth and climbed into the shower.

As soon as he was dried and dressed Oliver was intent on crawling back into bed beside his wife to sleep off whatever bug he'd caught that had his head feeling like it was stuffed full of rusty nails and an entire grocery store worth of salt and had his stomach ready to revolt against him.

Feet shuffling and eyelids feeling as though they were dragging over broken glass Oliver stopped in the middle of his bedroom, his brain finally registering that something was wrong.

No, not something; Everything.

A flood of memories assaulted him, setting his head spinning and his chest aching. The memory of why he was currently standing in his childhood bedroom, why he was at the mansion instead of at the house he bought with Felicity a year before they were married. The memory of Felicity's tear-streaked face, eyes shadowed with pain and loss that even Oliver hadn't been able to fully comprehend, much less help to ease.

The worst was the memory of her voice, desolate and broken, as she asked him to just leave her alone and the lack of objection when he suggested he stay at his mother's for the night.

He hadn't wanted to leave her alone, hadn't thought for a second that she'd readily agree to his absence. It hurt. Normally Oliver was the first person Felicity clung to when she needed someone to cling back. He was her rock, her one constant source of solace, her shelter in the storm as well as her husband.

The remembered sight of her curled in on herself in the middle of their bed, her knees drawn up to her chest as tears burned down her face and her breath rattled in her lungs, a shattered woman, was enough to make Oliver's chest constrict uncomfortably. Knowing he could do nothing, say absolutely nothing to make the pain any easier to deal with hurt more than Oliver would have thought possible.

Still, it was a mere fraction of the crippling pain he felt when she just let him leave.

Now, the hollow ache in his chest returned with a vengeance and there was nothing for Oliver to do but finish crossing the room and collapse into a limp pile of limbs alone in his bed. He wrapped himself up in blankets, blocking out the early morning light by dragging the thick comforter up over his head, and willed himself to sleep.

Maybe when he woke up he would go home and Felicity would be glad to see him instead of looking at him like he reminded her of what she lost.

 

*

 

A loud knock on his bedroom door woke Oliver from a dead sleep. Instead of climbing out of bed to answer he burrowed deeper into his nest of blankets and squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to keep the rest of the world at bay. His head felt a bit better, no longer pounding so much as throbbing and his stomach appeared to have settled despite the fact that he had yet to eat anything.

"Come on, Ollie!" Thea's muffled voice carried through the thick wood. "It's after noon, do not even try to pretend you're still sleeping."

Oliver ignored her, feeling the swell of emotions trying to burble up in his chest. Sleep was peaceful, mostly. At least it allowed him a temporary reprieve in which he could hide from the pain. Being awake was bullshit. Every thought circled around Felicity and the broken look in her eye when she told him what happened, what almost was.

The sound of creaking hinges alerted Oliver to Thea entering the room, her soft footfalls padding across the carpet until her weight dipped the mattress at Oliver's head.

"Rough night?" she asked as she shifted around, laying down beside Oliver without dragging him from his cocoon.

"You could say that." Oliver was surprised to hear the flat sound of his own voice, though maybe he shouldn't have been, considering.

"Wanna talk about it?"

Oliver scoffed quietly. "Not particularly."

Thea was silent for a long while, the only sound in the room the steady but soft whoosh of breathing and the occasional rustle of bed linens. Eventually, Oliver slowly lowered his goose down shield and met his sister's eye.

"Well, you look like hell." Thea frowned, reaching out to wrap her fingers around Oliver's hand where it was clasped around the edge of his blanket. "What happened?"

Oliver felt the moisture burning behind his eyes, felt the familiar prickles of heat that made him clench his jaw and purse his lips against it. He kicked out of his tangled blankets, throwing them off with more force than necessary.

"I just said I don't want to talk about it, Thea!" he growled, thrusting a hand through his hair while he tried to reign himself in. It wasn't his sister's fault, after all. It wasn't anybody's fault. Sometimes bad shit happened for no fucking reason and that was something Oliver accepted a long time ago.

Or he thought he had.

"I know you don't." Thea said easily. "But, that's probably why you should. Look, Ollie, you don't have to talk to me, but you should talk to _someone_."

Blowing out a harsh breath between thin-pressed lips Oliver sank heavily into his desk chair and scrubbed his hands hard over his face. "You're probably right. But, since the only person I really want to talk to isn't here, I guess I'm out of luck."

Thea rolled her eyes as she shoved herself out of Oliver's bed and made her way to the door. She paused with her fingers around the handle, turning back to face her brother. "I know you don't want to talk. That's fine. But, at the very least you should come down for lunch. Roy's on his way. I'll call and ask him to swing by and pick up Tommy. That'll save you from having to hunt down your emotional support moron."

She laughed at her own joke as she stepped into the hallway but Oliver didn't hear it. He was too busy trying to reconcile what Thea said with reality as he knew it.

Roy was going to stop and pick up Tommy on his way to the mansion for lunch. Oliver should have been glad for it, should have felt just a little less anxious knowing that his best friend, the man he shared a sister with, was just a few minutes away. Oliver should have felt relieved to know that Tommy would be there to lend an ear, to hold Oliver up when he inevitably fell apart. Oliver should have been already dressing for lunch instead of staring dumbly at the closed door where Thea had just vanished, trying to fight off what he could only assume was a panic attack.

Oliver couldn't feel any of that, though. All he could feel was the blood rushing through his head, the tremble in his knees when he tried to stand from his chair, the too fast thump of his heart against his ribs. One word had flipped Oliver's world on its head, sent his mind careening through a flood of questions he couldn't answer, and had him frozen in place. Because it was impossible. There was no way Tommy would be stepping foot through the front door in just a few minutes time.

Because Tommy Merlyn died in The Undertaking nearly six years before.

 

*

 

Oliver was pacing the foyer floor, his body too buzzed with electric expectation for him to even try and don the stoic persona he had perfected over the years, when he heard car doors slamming in the driveway. He stilled, bracing himself for just about anything, and heard Thea's hurried footsteps as they grew closer.

When the front door opened Roy stepped through it, a bright smile curling his lips when his eyes landed on Thea.

The roaring in Oliver's ears blocked out whatever Roy might have said, made everything around him seem distant and removed. The entire world narrowed down to nothing but the impossible sight of Tommy Merlyn closing the front door behind him before pulling Thea into a sweet embrace that made Oliver's throat close.

"Tommy?" Oliver croaked, frozen in place but feeling for all the world as though he'd just run a marathon.

Tommy's eyes met Oliver's, a cocky but genuine grin splitting his face. "Hey Ollie." he greeted, releasing his sister to move across the room toward Oliver. Tommy didn't hesitate to pull Oliver into a hug that probably would have been brief if not for Oliver holding onto him for dear life. "Whoa, man." Tommy chuckled, squeezing back. "Not that I'm not flattered, but I'm already taken." he joked.

Oliver forced back the wave of tears he could feel building in his throat and took a step back, keeping a hand on Tommy's shoulder just to prove to himself that his best friend was really there. He cleared his throat and tried to make sure his voice came out as steady and normal as he could make it. "Yeah well, so am I. I won't tell if you don't."

The hairs on the back of Oliver's neck stood up, a chill snaking its way down his spine as he caught the look on everyone's faces as they stared at him. Thea's brows were drawn down in confusion, Roy's face was a smooth mask of mildly interested curiosity, and Tommy's eyes were sad, a shadow slithering in their sparkling depths.

"What?" Oliver questioned, dread pooling low in his gut.

Thea was the first to speak. "Since when are you taken?" she asked, arms crossed over her chest like she was angry he was keeping a secret from her.

Oliver's mouth turned down at the corners, his forehead wrinkling with the frown. "What are you talking about? If being married for the last two years doesn't constitute being taken, I'm not really sure what does."

Thea's mouth fell open with a pop, her eyes going wide and round. "Married?!"

"Are you feeling okay, Oliver?" Tommy asked seriously, putting one hand on Oliver's shoulder.

Oliver shrugged it off, unable to handle the comfortingly familiar feeling the touch evoked knowing it wasn't real, that this entire thing was some kind of super vivid hallucination or something and he'd wake up at some point to find Tommy dead once more.

"I'm fine." he gritted, picking up the slow route he'd been walking before Roy had opened the front door.

"No, you're really not." Thea shook her head, seeming to have regained her voice.

"Who do you think you're married to?" Roy asked, head tilted while he watched Oliver pace again.

"I don't think." Oliver snapped. "I know."

"Whatever." Thea brushed the distinction aside. "Who?" she pressed.

"Felicity." Oliver told them, stopping in place when he heard Thea gasp and Tommy sigh heavily. "What?" he demanded, his heart ratcheting up in his chest. "What is it?"

"Maybe you and I should go for a drive." Tommy suggested, his eyes bouncing between Thea and Oliver.

"Wait, Felicity? Didn't she d-" Roy started, only to be shushed by his girlfriend.

"Go." Thea nodded to Tommy as she slipped her arm through Roy's and tugged him toward the dining room. "We'll be here when you get back."

Oliver followed numbly along behind Tommy as they left the house and headed for the car. His mind was swimming and the icy fingers of dread that had knotted in his belly now reached up to wrap around his heart.

"Where is she?" Oliver asked once they were settled in the car and heading north on the interstate, his voice a mere whisper in the straining silence.

Tommy hesitated, chewing on his tongue as though he could stop himself from having to the say the words. After a moment he sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "God, I never saw myself having to do this."

"Just spit it out, Tommy!" Oliver demanded.

He knew. Somewhere deep inside, buried in denial, Oliver knew. If Tommy was here, alive and kicking in this world, there had to be a trade off. The universe demanded balance.

After one last sideways glance Tommy steeled himself into speaking. "She's gone, Ollie." He said it softly but the words still tore Oliver to shreds. "Felicity died almost six years ago."

 

*

 

"Let me get this straight." Tommy held up a hand to stop Oliver from continuing his hour long monologue. Oliver dutifully snapped his mouth shut. "You're telling me that you aren't our Oliver? That you're from some other dimension or whatever where Felicity survived the quake, my father is alive and still trying to get his talons into Thea, and you, Oliver Jonas Queen, somehow talked Felicity into marrying you on a beach in San Tropez on New Years Eve?"

Oliver gave a frustrated huff and pushed himself up from the picnic table they'd staked their claim on at the edge of Riverside Park. "I know how it sounds, Tommy. But, it's true. All of it."

Tommy crossed his arms across his chest, a contemplative look gracing his face. "So, how the hell did you end up here then? What's the last thing you remember?"

An image of Felicity's face, tear-soaked and pallid, flashed through Oliver's mind. "Felicity. She..." He swallowed hard, once more trying to tamp down on the emotions he'd yet to actually allow himself to feel. "The very last thing I remember is falling asleep in my bed at the mansion. When I woke up I had a pounding migraine and I was still in bed."

"Except your bed isn't in the same place it was in last night." Tommy supplied.

"Not even close." Oliver agreed darkly.

"Okay." Tommy rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. "Did you piss off a witch or something? Maybe fall into a black hole? Discover a long lost genie lamp and give it a nice waxing?"

"No, noth-" Oliver started to protest, stopping mid-sentence when a thought struck him. "Actually..."

"Did you remember something else?" Tommy asked, curiosity lighting his eyes.

"Yeah." Oliver snorted humorlessly. "I was frustrated and upset when I went to sleep last night. Everything was all fucked up and Felicity didn't want me at home and I felt like I was drowning." Tommy nodded his understanding so Oliver continued. "There's only ever been three people I could talk to when things get that bad. Felicity, Diggle, and..."

"Me." Tommy smiled.

Oliver's heart throbbed painfully. "Right. But, Felicity didn't want to see me and Digg was out of town. I just wanted to talk to you, you know? I needed to hear you tell me that everything was going to be okay, that it wasn't going to be that bad, that hard, forever."

"You lost me." Tommy admitted. "Why would wanting to talk to me have anything to do with jumping universes?"

Oliver's eyes fell shut of their own accord. He didn't want to be the one to tell Tommy this, but he owed it to him. "In my world... Felicity wasn't the one that died in the earthquake, Tommy."

Tommy's face registered his bafflement for a beat before it blanked. His eyes went sad and dark, but Oliver could see him trying to force it back. "Oh." He dipped his chin, his eyes falling on a knot in the wooden picnic table.

Oliver made himself sit back down across from his friend. "I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have-"

"No." Tommy's face was tight and pinched but his voice was strong and adamant. "It's okay, Ollie. Just... How?"

"You died saving Laurel's life." Oliver's eyes watered at the memory. He could taste the dust and feel the heat from the flames as though he were right back in that building, crouched beside Tommy and begging him to just open his eyes. "You died a hero."

Tommy did manage to smile weakly at that. "Laurel. Is she... She's okay?"

"She's okay." Oliver confirmed. "She has Sara now, and she's done a lot to rebuild her life. What about here?"

Tommy held up his left hand and Oliver caught the glint of gold on his ring finger. "Married, two kids, one hell of an ADA."

The first genuine smile since the night before tugged at Oliver's mouth. "You're a dad."

"Of two beautiful little girls." Tommy wrestled his phone from the interior pocket of his jacket and tapped at the screen before handing it to Oliver. "That one is Olivia." Tommy informed him, pointing to the little girl on the left. "And that's Emma."

Both girls were the spitting image of their father, save for the eyes. Those eyes were all Laurel.

"Wow." Oliver breathed, ignoring the stabbing pain in his chest as much a he could but unable to ignore the tears that leaked from the corners of his eyes.

"I guess they don't exist in your world either." Tommy frowned deeply down at the photo of his girls.

"No." Oliver wiped at his cheeks. "None of us have kids yet, except for Digg. He and his wife, Lyla, have a little boy. Felicity and I... We..."

He couldn't force himself to say it. Couldn't make the words leave his tongue. Felicity's face swam into his vision again, the same devastated look in her eyes. Oliver's whole body hurt with the need to do something, anything, to make the loss any easier to face.

Tommy stayed silent while Oliver tried to wrap his head around everything. Going to sleep in your own universe only to wake up in someone elses had a way of shifting just about everything.

Nearly ten minutes passed before Tommy cleared his throat. "So, what did you want to talk to me about?"

Oliver's head snapped up.

"You said that you needed me to tell you that it wasn't going to be that bad forever." Tommy reminded him. "What was so bad that you needed to jump worlds just to talk to your dead best friend?"

Oliver flinched but figured Tommy was aloud to make light of it if it made him feel any better.

"Felicity... She didn't come into the office yesterday." Oliver balled his fists, nails biting into his palm in an effort to force the words out. "She wasn't answering her phone and she hadn't called, which isn't like her. With what we do, she knows I worry. I couldn't take not knowing anymore so as soon as my meeting finished I went to look for her."

"And?" Tommy prodded gently.

"She was still at home where I left her, curled up on the bathroom floor, just... Sobbing." Oliver's jaw creaked with the tension as he clenched it. "I tried to touch her, to let her know I was there and get her to tell me what was wrong but she just cried harder. I've never seen her like that, Tommy. Felicity is always so strong, you know? She's usually the one holding me together."

"It must have been hard to see her like that." Tommy sympathized.

"It broke my heart." Oliver croaked. "I didn't know what to do for her, how to help. So, I just sat with her and waited. I don't think she stopped crying so much as she just ran out of tears. Maybe I shouldn't have pushed her... Maybe I should have just let her tell me whenever she was ready, but I wanted to do something. She's my wife, how could I just sit there and do nothing while she broke?" Oliver gulped in a breath, easing some of the burn in his lungs. "She couldn't even speak. She just held out a piece of paper, all crumpled and soaked with tears. She..." Oliver had to stop to gather his emotions, reigning them in with an iron grip. "I didn't even know she was pregnant, Tommy."

Tommy's face crumbled, a pent up breath escaping through parted lips. "She miscarried." he whispered.

Oliver was crying steadily by then but he couldn't bring himself to care. Not with Tommy. Not when he knew Felicity was out there somewhere, in pain and in mourning. Not when they'd lost a child before he'd even known it existed.

"According to the doctor she was almost nine weeks along. Nine weeks." Oliver wiped at his eyes. "How could I not know? What kind of husband am I that I didn't notice?"

"Hey." Tommy interjected. "You can't do that to yourself, man. That early, you couldn't have known unless Felicity wanted you to know. Laurel was almost three months pregnant before she told me. Jesus, Ollie, some women don't even know they're pregnant right up until they go into labor. For once in your life don't make yourself feel guilty over something you have absolutely no control over."

"I just... You know that Anna miscarried back before the island." Tommy dipped in his chin in acknowledgment and Oliver pressed on. "I was too young then to really understand what she lost, what we lost. It still hurt, even if I was relieved in a way. But this... This is so much harder."

"Of course it is, Oliver." Tommy shook his head sadly, scrubbing a hand at his jaw. "Not only are you older and hopefully wiser, but you love Felicity. Even back then, before the quake, I knew how much she meant to you. And if you married her I can only imagine how much more in love you are now. I'm not trying to diminish the baby you and Anna lost, by any means, okay? But it's different. I can't even let myself think about losing a child, how hard that would be, how much it would hurt. Losing a child that was half me and half Laurel? I don't know how I'd survive that."

"What do I do, Tommy? How do I help her get through this? I mean Jesus... How can I help her if I don't even know where the hell I am or how I'm supposed to get home?" Oliver's frustration was rising again and the headache that had mostly faded away now came roaring back.

"Look, we'll figure it out, okay?" Tommy reached across the table and gave Oliver's wrist a tight squeeze. "Somehow we will get you back to your wife. As for how you can help her? Just be there. Let her cry and let her rage and don't try to hide your own pain just because you think you have less right to it than she does. You both lost a child, Oliver. You both lost something that you can never replace, can never get back. Mourn however you see fit, but never stop being there for her to lean on."

Oliver stared at Tommy for a long while, more surprised than was probably fair that his friend seemed so put together. Tommy finally had his head on straight. He seemed to have built a life with Laurel that he should have gotten the chance to build in Oliver's world, too. Oliver couldn't have been any more proud of Tommy if he'd gone on to become president of US or some other crazy impossible feat.

"When did you turn into a grown up?" Oliver asked, the knot in his chest loosening just a fraction.

Tommy chuckled heartily. "Never. I just got better at faking it."

 

*

 

They were halfway back to where Tommy had parked his car when the headache Oliver had been trying to ignore reached its crescendo and his stomach heaved violently.

"Hey, you okay?" Tommy asked, his voice and expression both giving away his concern while he pressed one hand between Oliver's shoulders when he hunched forward and swayed on the spot.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little dizzy." Oliver assured, straightening up and taking a few shaky steps.

He'd only managed to cover about ten feet before the world around him tilted on its axis and his equilibrium was shot to shit. Oliver hit the ground hard enough to feel his bones jostle. His skull felt like it was being split in half by a jackhammer and his stomach could have been completing a barrel roll for all he knew with the way it flipped.

The very last thing he heard above the sound of gale force winds inside his head was Tommy bellowing his name.

Oliver woke up retching. His throat burned with bile, his tongue thickly coated and his stomach heaving, clenching around nothing. He rolled sideways in his bed, shoving himself upright. With his feet on the floor and his pounding head cradled in his hands Oliver took deep, shuddering breaths in a weak attempt to stop the room from spinning around him.

"Hey, you okay?" a tiny voice asked.

The words startled him and Oliver was up and taking a defensive position before he'd even thought about it. Chest rising with labored breaths, Oliver's entire body sagged with relief when he realized the voice belonged to Felicity.

Felicity whose face was pale and drawn, eyes glassy and bloodshot, mouth pinched with an emotional pain Oliver felt just a fraction of and was sure it would ruin him, but who was there. In the flesh, in the middle of Oliver's childhood bed, Felicity was there.

"You look like you've seen a ghost." She frowned, her exhaustion obvious in every shadow on her face.

Oliver could still see Tommy's face, split wide with a smile as he walked through the mansion doors behind Roy. His voice was thick when he quietly said, "I think I might have."


End file.
